It's not all about cats
by girlwithapocketwatch
Summary: Modern AU. One shot. Enjolras gets properly introduced to tumblr.


It was a spring afternoon, moderately mild. The sort of afternoon where nobody tends to get anything of importance done. The fact that it was a Sunday, also lends to this fact, I suppose.

Let me set the scene. Cafe Musain. The sun is weakly shining through the west facing windows, and refusing to acknowledge the rest, leaving most of the place drenched in late afternoon shadows. Stubborn Love by The Lumineers is playing softly in the background. Behind the counter is a girl, with raven hair and chapped, rose lips, due to the development of a bad habit consisting of chewing on them whenever she had a remotely concentrated thought. She watches figure shaped shadows dance across the floorboards as she dabs at her apron, after having managed to spill an entire glass of water down herself. Still, it could've been worse. _Could've been tomato soup_, she thinks to herself, _and that is not an incident I want to relive._

After a second, she notices one of the shadows moving steadfastly in her direction. She looks up, eyebrows raised, and sees a familiar face of both stone and the sea after a storm beneath a head of unruly, barely brushed, golden locks.

"Large black coffee, please." Enjolras asks, reaching into his pocket to pull out exactly the right amount of change.

Eponine, for that was the girl's name, lifts her shoulders in a sort of shrug, and drops the towel in her hand to the counter. "No surprise there," She nods at him briefly before grabbing a mug from the shelf. He returns her nod.

"Anything else for you, sir?" She places the coffee in front of him, and leans on the edge of her side of the counter, raising her left hand, in which sits a, very tempting, I might add, chocolate chip muffin. "Perhaps a muffin?"

He blinks at her, simultaneously taking the drink and placing the money in its place. His mouth opens, and he has full intention to politely decline her offer, but before he has a chance to do so, an unattractively high pitched giggle sounds from beside him. He closes his mouth, and turns his head towards the noise, the noise that came from none other than one Marius Pontmercy. But really now, who else might it have been?

"What now?" Says Grantaire with a lopsided smile, as he makes his way over to Marius on the other side of the counter, partially dry mug and tea towel in hand.

Marius looks up at him briefly, still giggling, although it has now developed into the silent phase. He takes a breath , and in reply, simply points to his phone. Grantaire places his elbows on the surface and leans forward, straining his neck to look at the screen. On it, he sees the tumblr app open, scrolling paused on a photoset consisting of cats, stuck in blinds. He glances at Marius with bemusement.

"You've not seen that one before? That circulated tumblr ages ago." He lets out a small laugh as he stands up and continues to wipe the mug dry.

Eponine shoves past him and takes a look for herself. She nods in agreement, now understanding the situation, and gives Marius a sly smirk. "Ages ago."

Enjolras takes a sip of his coffee, and then another when he notices it's the perfect temperature, and watches the scene with, what he must admit, is a little denied curiosity.

"Well, I haven't seen it before," He takes another look and a smile breaks its way further into his features, "I'm gonna like it, and then reblog it, and then unlike it so that I can like it again."

Grantaire gives a slight shake of his head, his dark, shaggy excuse for curls bouncing with the movement. He wonders towards the mug shelf, concentrating a little harder than is necessary on getting that single mug as dry as can be.

Placing her elbows on the counter and her head in her palms, Eponine narrows her eyes at Marius, "I think we need to find you some new blogs to follow."

"What are you talking about? All you need is cats," He returns, matter-of-factly, "And Doctor Who."

"And Tom Hiddleston, beautiful man." Grantaire interjects, his back still to the conversation. Feeling the three pairs of eyes suddenly upon him, he turns around. "What can I say?" He gives a shrug and a smirk before returning his attention to rearranging the cups and saucers.

Eponine's gaze returns to Marius, but not before briefly pausing on Enjolras, meeting eyes with him for a second. He takes another sip, her eyes continue on their way. Then, a question finds its way to the part of her brain that states she must instantly ask it.

"Enjolras…" She draws out the 'jol' a little more than she need have done. She wanders towards him, and picks up the change of his she'd forgotten to put into the till. Moving it about her palm, she then asks, aware the subject of social networking sights can tend to be an interesting one when it comes to Enjolras, "Have you ever thought of getting a tumblr?"

"No," He answers shortly, "And I think our friend Pontmercy is a good illustration of the reason why." Enjolras, truly, had never considered it. He was aware of its existence, of course, being that it was the topic of many a conversation, conversations often ending on cats. And what was all that talk of ships? And canons? Was it a collective of pirate enthusiasts? He blinks at them, and brings his coffee mug back up to his lips.

Marius pats the seat beside him, but not before pouting his overly refined lips and giving the others his Pontmercy Puppy Eyes. Eponine gives him a laugh in return, and looks to Enjolras, her eyebrows, again, raising. He gives her a stare from above the rim of his cup, but makes his way towards the offered stool.

"Ok, tumblr is great," Marius starts, gesturing rather enthusiastically with his hands as he talks. "You should consider getting one. I mean, probably not one dedicated to cats, or a fandom one, bu-" Enjolras lifts his hand, motioning for him to pause.

"Fandom?"

"Fandom is basically a what you call group of fans dedicated to celebrating the awesomeness of a tv show, or a book, or some such thing along those lines," Grantaire inputs, now engaging himself in the conversation, brushing a fringe of hair from his eyes.

Enjolras' brows furrow ever so slightly, and he nods once with understanding. He replaces his hand. "Proceed."

'...But, you get really interesting ones, too. Politics, debating, history, y'know, 'you' stuff." He widens his eyes, as he jazz hands in Enjolras' direction.

Enjolras, is yet to be convinced. In his experience, social network politics have not always appealed to him. People tend to appear welcoming, and to advertise, and insist, that the internet as an accepting place, where everybody and anybody is welcome to openly discuss issues and to get along with peopl,e when they don't necessarily find it easy to in the real world. But, if somebody so much as mentions that they might not hold the 'right' opinion on something, they are immediately cut down.

It claims to allow people the freedom to be who they are, without accepting that they are who they are. And he didn't understand.

That became apparent in his facial features, and Grantaire, after observing him, decides to pitch it from a different direction.

"But, it's not all as negative as you may assume." He picks up a crumb from counter, and drops it to the floor. To sweep up later, would no doubt be his excuse, if the question were to arise. "It can be a great place to just wind down. If you find the area you most fit in with, whether that's with the active debaters, or the intellectual students of art history, the science side, or the cat obsessed Whovians like him," I don't think I need mention to whom he is implying. "It can be interesting, and informal. And, well, pretty damn ridiculous. But, in a good way, I would say."

"I don't think he needs another reason to not sleep. Else his usual will become _two_ large black coffees." Eponine thinks out loud, bringing her hair over her shoulder to braid it, only to unbraid it once she notices a customer has been waiting to order, and giving a parting nod to the others, she goes to do what she's primarily there to do.

"Okay, just have a look." Marius shoves his phone into Enjolras' hand. Thankfully, the hand that was not holding his coffee. That might have resulted in an exchange of glares, groans, and shaking of heads, from most parties. One such party might have simply apologised profusely and not helped the matter by rubbing the coffee further into Enjolras' trousers, worsening the stain. But, I shan't dillydally by going into too much detail about an event that didn't actually happen.

Enjolras is first faced with a moody, black and white photoset of Matt Smith. Then comes a post that appears to be of Amy Pond's last moment, faced with a stone angel, underneath are various comments such as 'DON'T MIND ME I'VE JUST GOT A TREE IN MY EYE', and 'nooooooooooooooo', and, well, you get the jist. Enjolras lets out a restrained sigh, but continues to scroll. Cats, cats, pandas, 'what a beautiful headcanon', cats, 'THIS SHIP WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME'. He glances up at Marius, his expression one of questionable confusion. Marius simply nods, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide. Enjolras looks back at the phone in his hand, and continues to scroll. He soon comes across a graphic of the afforementioned ship, although, Enjolras simply assumes these people are already together, and wonders why these people might be making such a fuss. He's also surprised at how he's not yet come across anything remotely related to pirates. Ah, spoke too soon. There's a gif from Pirates of the Caribbean. More cats, 'lol nope', a gifset of The Doctor's companions over the years, Benedict Cumberbitch. Wait. Enjolras scrolls back up to the post he just passed, and looks a little closer at the screen. Oh, CumberBATCH. Proceed.

"Well..?" Marius inquires, shoulders hunched.

Eponine glances over part way through handing the customer their change, as does Grantaire, and the customer, too, wondering just what all the fuss is about.

Enjolras rises from his seat, placing the phone on the table. He takes a swig of his coffee, now not quite the right temperature, but still drinkable. He slides his gaze towards Marius, who is eagerly awaiting his response.

"I'll think about it."

And with that, he retreats to his usual spot, picks up his notebook, scribbles something down, and that, reader, is presumably the end of that.


End file.
